UNH can't catch up with Dutchmen

DURHAM — Plagued by slow starts recently and getting away with them, the University of New Hampshire men's hockey team couldn't recover this time.

Union College has been terrific on the road all season, and the Dutchmen showed why Friday night in a 3-1 win over the Wildcats.

The visitors quickly negated UNH's home-ice advantage with a couple of early goals and rode the momentum to victory at the Whittemore Center.

“This loss is pretty disappointing,” said senior captain Eric Knodel. “It was a huge game for us. It's a huge weekend for us. Especially coming out so flat in the first period, we tried to emphasize coming out with an edge and getting after them. Getting that first goal was going to be important for us.”

But that never happened. The loss snapped the Wildcats' four-game win streak as they fell to 13-11-1 overall. Sixth-ranked Union improved to 14-4-3, including 8-1-2 on the road.

The Dutchmen, who are 11-1-1 in their last 13 games, scored twice in the first period and once in the second to lead 3-0 after two periods.

“It wasn't our best team effort,” said UNH coach Dick Umile. “We needed everybody to have one of their better games. We got beat as a team tonight. That's how I feel about it. Disappointed. We didn't make plays when we had opportunities to make plays.”

The Wildcats fell to 0-10-0 when trailing at the end of two periods. No. 17 UNH will try to salvage a split of the two-game series, which concludes tonight (7) at the Whitt.

The Wildcats gave up the first goal for the fifth straight game. They won the previous four, but it finally caught up with them.

“The first two periods we came out flat and didn't do anything to help ourselves out there,” Knodel said. “The third period we kind of turned it around a little bit, but it wasn't enough. … We faced a good team tonight, and they were able to take what we had in the third period and just deflect it.”

UNH outshot the Dutchmen, 39-32, including 19-11 in the third period.

With the Wildcats down 3-0, Nick Sorkin gave them some life in the first minute of the third period with his team-high 13th goal of the season.

Matt Willows carried the puck down the left-wing side during a 3-on-1 rush. His centering pass struck a Union defenseman and the puck went to Sorkin, who swept it in just 47 seconds into the third.

The Wildcats almost had another two shifts later, but Jeff Silengo, back in the lineup after missing the last two games with a broken hand, hit the far post.

“It's really tough,” Sorkin said. “It's one of our biggest games of the season, and it's unfortunate that was the outcome.”

The Wildcats found themselves in an early hole after the Dutchmen scored twice in less than three minutes to take a 2-0 lead just 7:06 into the game, which is the way the first period ended.

The line of Matt Hatch, Eli Lichtenwald and Michael Pontarelli accounted for both goals with Hatch scoring off a goal-mouth scramble at 4:21 and Pontarelli finding the back of the net from the high slot to cap an odd-man rush at the 7:06 mark.

UNH had scoring chances in the first period, but failed to capitalize. Freshman Tyler Kelleher had an early breakaway but the puck rolled off his stick before he could get a shot on goal and Kevn Goumas hit the pipe at 6:15 of the first.

The Dutchmen went up 2-0 less than a minute later.

Trailing by two goals, the Wildcats had Union goalie Colin Stevens under siege later in the period, but he stood tall under the pressure and made a sharp glove save with 7:23 remaining in the first.

“I thought we had some good play in the third period,” Sorkin said, “and we can build off that. The main thing is we have to come out like we did in the third period. Our starts have to be better. We have to bring tempo and take the game to them right from the beginning.”

Union made it 3-0 on a power-play goal early in the second period.

Daniel Carr scored into a virtual empty net with UNH goalie Casey DeSmith out of position after making a nice left-to-right, sliding save on a backdoor attempt by the Dutchmen.

The rebound came out to Carr in the right circle and he put the puck home at 5:49 of the second with one second remaining on Kyle Smith's penalty for goaltender interference.

“They're a fast and physical team,” Knodel said. “They got into us pretty quickly with their cycle and got a lot of shots. They shoot the puck from everywhere. That's something we need to address.”

“I thought it was a closer game than the score was,” Sorkin said. “You have to give credit to them. They finished their opportunities and we didn't.”